This was a long time ago, but it has come up with the family. Grandpa died in the 60s. He had a cold. Mom and Dad took him to a doctor. This was in a small town in Oklahoma. The doctor gave him a shot and said that would fix everything. By morning, Grandpa had died in his sleep, peacefully. Is there such a drug that would have that kind of delayed effect? We don't plan to do anything about it. What's done is done. I'm sure the doctor has passed by now. But for our own info. My father thinks that this was a common practice back then.

For some reason, I had trouble posting. I have come to the conclusion that he possibly had a reaction to the shot or was so bad he succumbed to to the sickness. Thank you for your thoughts on this. I'm hoping I can convince them that there is nothing to feel bad about. Apparently my mother thought he was euthanized and took that guilt to her grave. How sad for her. Again thank you very much.

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We are looking for his death certificate

You should be able to find one via vital records in the county where he died. I hope your brother and father can find some peace.

ruralite, I know of a women, the mother of my mother's best school friend, so grandmother age to me (Mom is 94). Well anyway, Camillia was in her 80s still living in her home, renting out the upstairs with its own entrance to a boarder when she fell on her kitchen floor. She couldn't get up and didn't want to disturb anyone so she stayed there for 18 hours until the man upstairs realized that he should have heard her when he came home from work. Then he came to look for her, found her and called for an ambulance (no 911 then). She was dehydrated and a mess but nothing broken except her pride.

They kept her in the hospital for a few days (they did that then) for observation and so her daughter could come down from PA to deal with her. Camillia was due to be released the next day, she was doing just fine. Her daughter gave her an ultimatum, "Move to a nursing home here in your home town or move to PA with me. You ARE NOT LIVING ALONE anymore".

I was there, I was 26 then and I heard Camillia say, "If I can't live in MY home, I will not live anywhere". In the morning when they came to check on her, she was dead. That is a true story. I don't know if it was the power of her will, if she was really special to God and called in a favor (don't sue me, I really don't think it works like that), or if she was a victim of someone like the orderly I mentioned before. But the lady is one of my heros.

If you believe that your Grandpa was ready to go be with Grandma, then it should be easy to believe that a cold would send him over to the other side. You say asthma from mining, today the least that would be is COPD, maybe black lung. Also it was so common to give injections of antibiotics for a cold then. A lot of people were/are allergic to penicillin and it doesn't always mean instant anaphalactic shock. In your Grandpa's fragile condition it wouldn't take much to end it as respiratory failure. No one will ever know for sure.

Darlin', I am sorry that you, your brother, and your Father lost these 2 dear people in such a short time. I am not surprised that your Father doesn't trust doctors and is passing this on to your brother. Heck, I think they need close watching myself, but not because I think they want (or wanted ) to kill people, just because they are human and they screw up sometimes. They still know more than me, but if I ask a question, I expect an answer.

I can see that the issue could create a paradox for your family. You may never be able to put their minds at rest, but I hope you can be. Please come back to talk anytime.

Thank you for your reassurances. We are looking for his death certificate. It's going to be hard to dig out of a trunk full of family papers. Grandpa was in his 80s. He lived with us from the time I was about 3. Every birthday towards the end, he would say in his broken English "I go to Momma soon" meaning joining Grandma in the ground. He had asthma from working in the mines. I could see where a cold could give him a great deal of problems. My brother has always been the one troubled by it all. Now Dad is telling him this stuff. I wanted to see if anyone had ever heard of this. Of course Dad is now 86 and still suffers from PTSD from WWII. So he can come up with stuff sometimes.

Grampa was my mom's dad and she died from cancer about a year later, so in a way, Grandpa was spared having to endure the death of his daughter. But then, and I just thought of this. The Dr knew that Mom was sick and he might have figured it would be easier on us as a family, emotionally and financially to not have to take care of both of them. Who knows?

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The doctor gave him a shot and said that would fix everything. By morning, Grandpa had died in his sleep, peacefully. Is there such a drug that would have that kind of delayed effect?

There are so many possibilities there, and so little information, it's simply not reasonable to suspect that he was euthanized, unless there were a number of suspicious deaths in that doctor's practice!! Gramps could have had a delayed allergic reaction; he could have had a heart attack; he could have had pneumonia. As previously said, the technology, medications, etc. in the 60s were quite different than we have today. People died back then and COD was often listed as "old age." Like WTH is that?!!

I dunno where HE lived, but I think your father is quite mistaken in alleging that euthanasia was a common practice. I can vouch as my father was a practicing physician during that time! Many people blame physicians and make false accusations when they do not understand what happened to a loved one. Some folks, even when a death is explained, will STILL believe that "someone" killed them. It was also pretty common for rural folks back then to be extremely mistrustful of medicine and doctors. Please reassure your father that this was certainly NOT a common practice and that there are many things that could have caused his father's death other than euthanasia. If your dad had questions or any reason other than his father's death to believe that his doctor had "put him down," an inquiry should have been made at that time. I suppose one could exhume the body and see if modern pathology could ascertain the COD by an autopsy and testing of the remains...

Why is this a current issue?

Welcome to ECO, ruralite. I think you mean he died in the 1960s (not when he was in his 60s). I don't think euthanasia was common practice by doctors(there was an orderly in the local hospital that was caught giving hospitalized elderly and terminal patients injections of lidocaine in the 1960s, resulting in 'unexpected' death).

I suspect his cold may have been a form of pneumonia that wasn't diagnosed. As Op said, stroke, heart attack, some allergic reaction. The practice of medicine was different then but the Hippocratic Oath was the same. "First do no harm" is interpreted differently by different people in different cultures. Many people believe that to prolong life when there is no hope of recovery (especially if it is painful) is doing harm.

I don't know what other problems he may have had. They didn't have MRIs or CT scans, some doctors were more artists than scientists at times. I have no reason to believe that euthanasia was common then or now. I hope your family is at peace with your loss.

I don't think there was any time when it was common practice -- remember, a physician's most basic oath is to do no harm. Going by the crime dramas on TV, the only way to really tell would be to exhume the body and do an autopsy, assuming none was done at the time. What was the official cause of death listed on the death certificate? Because both stroke and heart attacks are natural and can happen to even someone that young.